ABSTRACT
West, connecting the capitals and major cities in the area (Jaca, Pamplona, Nájera, Burgos, León, Astorga and Santiago de Compostela) with the roads, lands, towns and cities of the rest of Europe, until it became a ritual, indeed a sacred place, closely linked to the final goal of Santiago de Compostela. All kinds of stimuli-cultural, demographic, urbanistic, political and diplomatic-disseminated through this communication channel, took on greater force thanks to the pilgrims themselves with their capacity to convey information. So much so that this dynamism spurred the creation of a special place for devotion and culture in which the great works of Romanesque art make up an enormous artistic compendium that portray, unlike any other cultural expression, the conquests of the Medieval Christian community. One of the decisive factors was the support of the ecclesiastic elite and the contribution made by the Benedictine order. This new monastic ambience backed by the Cluny Reform and the liturgical innovations put forth by the papacy through the Gregorian reformist program was introduced on the peninsula, reaching Aragón in 1072 and shortly after appearing in Castile and León, particularly after the Council of Burgos of 1080. These processes proved to be an important stimulus in the creation of great monastic buildings and cathedrals integrated into a rural world that was undergoing major changes-thanks to the cultivation of new plots of land and innovative farming techniques introduced by the monks-and in the cities located along the Way of St. James. The entire monastic and hospitality dispensing structure organized by the Cluny order along the Way of St. James favoured the introduction of the Roman liturgy, the evolution of the worship of the Apostle and the rendering of care to the pilgrims. In addition to these achievements, stemming from the Reform of the Church, expressed through the Gregorian chant and the common liturgy, the
1 INTRODUCTION
The 11th century in Western Europe was a time marked by a burst of activity along the pilgrimage ways leading to the holy sepulchre of St. James the Apostle. The popularisation of the pilgrimage was largely due to the fact that the year 1000 had come and gone, and with it the fear that it would bring about the end of the world-a superstitious belief widely held by the rural, and generally uneducated society of the time. These routes whose destination was the Hispanic finisterre or land’s end, based on the foundations of Roman Christianity, were consolidated in the late 11th century and continued during the following century with the spontaneous pilgrimages undertaken by thousands of believers who were backed on the peninsula by the monarchies of Aragón and Navarra as well as Castile and León. The central period of the Middle Ages was, in fact, the golden age of the Jacobean pilgrimage. Under the episcopate of Diego Gelmírez (1100-1140), Santiago de Compostela was the centre of a thriving world, at once devout, cosmopolitan, eclectic and Babelic, devoted to a collective experience, blending-in this Jacobean cocktail-Christian piety, faith in the intervention of the Apostle and the generous practice of hospitality-channelled through a way/umbilical cord that connected the universal city to the West-with the advantages of exchanging news, ideas, goods, and knowledge, that were circulating along these devotional routes for the purpose of spreading out, opening up new markets and participating in the sheer creative possibilities offered by the Way of St. James.
